


effulgence

by kyungsuper



Series: Prompts [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: also TW for panic attacks, honestly i just went with the flow, it was a prompt i found on an app, just best friends being best friends, there's no romance here sorry, unbetad we die like heroes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyungsuper/pseuds/kyungsuper
Summary: The day that Baekhyun found out he had a superpower was a stormy Saturday.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun & Kim Jongdae | Chen
Series: Prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967485
Kudos: 5





	effulgence

**Author's Note:**

> effulgence [ih-fuhl-juhns]  
> noun  
> a brilliant radiance; a shining forth.
> 
> I don't know what this is, except for it being a superpowers!au origins story. Whatever, let's go with it.

The day that Baekhyun found out he had a superpower was a stormy Saturday, dark and dingy, spent trying to catch up on overdue homework and doing the laundry that his roommate hadn’t done the day before, despite Friday being his laundry day. It was one of those days where no matter how hard you work, no matter how diligent you are, everything seems to build up until one tiny thing becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back. For Baekhyun, this was a power cut caused by the aforementioned passing storm.

“Oh for-“ Baekhyun exclaims from his desk as he is plunged into darkness. “How am I supposed to finish this stupid essay now?” Damn him for bringing his bulky desktop gaming PC instead of a laptop like everyone else.

The rain pounds on the window at his back, the grey sky providing little light to the room beyond the glass; in the strange silence that the power cut leaves behind, the water sounds like fists, beating at the panes to come in. The ordinary buzz of electrical appliances is silenced, and Baekhyun wonders when he started taking that white noise for granted. It’s eerie, how dim and quiet the room becomes, and restlessly, Baekhyun moves into the common area that Jongdae and he share - it’s little more than a sparsely furnished box, a small kitchenette to the north, sandwiched between the walls of the two protruding bedrooms, the doors of which open to the living area, which is little more than a sad, old TV and a threadbare two seater couch. With only one window in the kitchen, this part of the dorm is even darker, and Baekhyun sighs.

A thrum of anxiety begins under his skin, and he wrings his hands together as he sinks into the cushions of the couch. Now what? He can’t watch TV because - you guessed it - there’s no power. He can’t even turn on a lamp to read by. They have no candles or flashlights, for some unfathomable reason (with the amount of storms they’d been having lately, he would make sure to add those items to his shopping list). Baekhyun has never been particularly afraid of the dark, but the vibe of the place is starting to get to him now, although he’s not sure why. They’ve had power cuts a few times (one of the joys of cheap campus living) and he’d never felt anxious then, so why now?

All he really wants is to turn on the lights, he thinks as a cols sweat breaks out on his brow. If he had the warm glow of the electric bulbs, he wouldn’t feel half as freaked out. His heartbeat spikes and thumps away in his chest, and his lips tremble. What he wouldn’t give for Jongdae to be here right now, just so he could distract himself with the motions of a conversation. The feeling of wrongness seems to settle over him like a blanket, his heart racing and his eyes flickering all around him in an effort to ground himself.

“C’mon, Byun,” he mumbles, almost inaudible. “Five things you can see. Start with that, five things you can see.” His therapist would pay _him_ to see this pathetic attempt, he thinks wryly. His body is starting to feel heavy and lethargic, almost out of control in the same way it is when he experiences sleep paralysis, and a cotton wool haze settles around his senses. “Oh shit,” he breathes as he realises he’s probably going to pass out, all alone, in the middle of his college dorm room. And it’s all because the power is out. What a fucking ridiculous reason.

Black spots dance across his vision and his heart skips a beat once, twice, thrice

And then there’s light

everywhere

blinding, white, beautiful light

brought on as quickly as flicking a switch, except it’s much too bright to be the dull overhead bulbs or even the floor lamp Baekbeom bought for him years ago

and he kind of feels like he’s floating, he can’t feel his body or really form coherent thoughts that last more than a few seconds, but this is kind of peaceful, he thinks

floating in the sea of light and

"Baekhyun!”A dull thud sounds and a muffled blow lands to his shoulder. “Oh, ow! Fuck! Baekhyun, where are you?”

Jongdae? His lips move but he doesn’t think any sound escapes. He tries to blink, to make a noise and finds he can’t.

“Baek, you have to concentrate _right now_ , you need to put the light out or I think I genuinely might go blind and I’ll one hundred percent sue your ass if that happens, so it’s really in your best interest to _turn it down_!”

A clammy hand finds his forearm, grasps it, then moves up, skimming the inside of his elbow, his shoulder, the edge of his jaw, finally resting on his forehead. It’s this touch that finally grounds him, allows him to find his way back to his body. Baekhyun wets his lips with his tongue and balls his hands into loose fists.

“What’s happening?” he slurs, and Jongdae makes a small noise that sounds like pure relief.

“I think your powers activated. It’s definitely light. Like, I fell over three different pieces of furniture that I couldn’t see before I finally got to you.”

“How do I… Turn it off?”

Jongdae pauses.

“I don’t know, maybe visualise it like you’re turning a light off? I usually just imagine I can see wires that guide my electricity so that I can channel it properly.”

Real helpful, Baekhyun thinks sourly. He still can’t see, isn’t sure if his eyes are open or closed, but at least he can feel his limbs now (kind of) and he’s pretty sure he’s lying on the floor - though how he got there, he doesn’t know.

He has no other ideas his own fried brain can come up with, so he tries his best to visualise a light switch, one of the fancy ones with a knob that you turn to dim the light, and imagines he’s turning the dial down.

“That’s good, it’s working, whatever you’re doing,” Jongdae encourages. “Do it again.”

He does, and feels his energy beginning to drain, grits his teeth, and imagines he’s plunging a room into near darkness, just a glow soft enough to be soothing left behind. It takes a few minutes of effort, of feeling his muscles screaming at him as though he’s running a marathon, of feeling fatigue almost completely take over, before he can see again.

“Jesus fuck,” Baekhyun mutters as he blinks away stubborn bright spots. “What the fuck?”

Jongdae lets out a small laugh. “Yeah that was my exact thought when I got to the door, you dick.”

The older breathes slowly, turning his head and squinting at Jongdae; he’s got his right hand covering his eyes, face all screwed up. His left hand slides into Baekhyun’s hair with the movement of the latter, and he peeks through his fingers.

“It’s safe to look now, I think,” Baekhyun confirms and Jongdae’s hand finally falls, though Jongdae continues to look around with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

“What happened?” Is all he asks, bringing both hands forward to help heave his roommate into a more comfortable position, back resting on the front of the couch.

The series of events flashes before his eyes like a film reel on fast forward. “There was a storm, and the power went out. I came in here and started to get anxious - I don’t know why - and started feeling kinda dizzy, and the next thing I knew-“ He throws his hands out as if to say ‘look around you’.

Jongdae hums as he moves to sit beside his friend. “I felt the storm coming this morning, but I didn’t realise your power was so close to showing up otherwise I would have stayed here.” He scrutinises the slumped figure to his left shrewdly, but not unkindly. “You _have_ been looking peaky all week, and you’ve been complaining of headaches and muscle pain,”

“Yeah, but I just thought that meant I was coming down with a flu or something, not that I was turning into the human lightbulb,” Baekhyun returns moodily.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.” Is all Jongdae says, and they both sit there for a few minutes while the last vestiges of chaos exits Baekhyun’s body and mind, leaving behind a deep tiredness that seems to seep into his bones.

“Has the power come back on?” He thinks to ask while he yawns; Jongdae shakes his head.

“I think you tripped the fuses, honestly,” he admits and his eyes turn a shining gold for a split second, electricity zapping through and around his fingers while he sends out his own power to investigate. “Yeah, looks like it’s out for the whole floor. But hey, don’t feel bad!” He immediately puts in, seeing the guilty look beginning to spread across the other man’s face. “I tripped two buildings out with mine, remember? This is nowhere near as bad as that!”

Baekhyun snorts, remembering the pandemonium that ensued. “That’s true.”

Jongdae laughs for a moment, then turns smiling eyes on the other. “Maybe you should get some rest. You know, drink some water, sleep a little.”

“My assignments-“ he immediately protests, only to be cut out by Jongdae flicking him in the forehead, which leads to a pout.

“I’ll talk to your professors, they’ll understand. Go on, grab a snack or something and come back out here, I’ll play a movie on my laptop and you can have a nap.”

Twenty minutes later, freshly hydrated, head in Jongdae’s lap as his eyelids drift shut, Baekhyun thinks only one thing: he’s lucky to be here with a best friend who understood immediately what to do, who followed some weird sort of sixth sense trigger to come home and help Baekhyun when he was helpless to do it himself.


End file.
